Michael Lewis Shares A Silicon Valley Tale.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: NOVEMBER 09, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 110901np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: "The New New Thing": An Interview With Michael Lewis
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:06

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

KEN TUCKER, GUEST HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Ken Tucker, critic at large for "Entertainment Weekly," sitting in for Terry Gross.

Last week, the judge in the Microsoft antitrust case ruled that Microsoft had bullied rivals and squelched competition. One of the most well-known companies to lose its competitive edge to Microsoft was Netscape, which marketed the first Internet browser.

In spite of Microsoft's purported monopoly, the founder of Netscape, Jim Clark, has managed to become a multibillionaire. Clark has started several companies in addition to Netscape, such as Silicon Graphics, Healtheon, and My CFO. He's the subject of a just-published book called "The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story."

It's written by Michael Lewis, whose first book was the best-selling Wall Street expose, "Liar's Poker." For "The New New Thing," Lewis was granted extensive access to Jim Clark, from sitting in on multimillion-dollar business deals to sailing with Clark on his massive computer-operated yacht.

I began by asking Lewis what it was about Jim Clark besides his wealth that intrigued him.

MICHAEL LEWIS, "THE NEW NEW THING": Well, it was clear to me that what was unique about Silicon Valley was the way it forced the new technology upon the rest of us, and that it's really good at starting new things.

And there was this character in the valley. It took me six or eight months to find him, but named Jim Clark, who was clearly the king of the starters. I mean, he was the -- he was legendary for not having started just one new thing but several new things.

And the really interesting thing about him was that he couldn't stop, that when I met him, he'd just created his third, what, multibillion-dollar company, first Silicon Graphics, then Netscape, which, of course, triggered the whole Internet boom, and then a company called Healtheon, which was going to turn the U.S. health care industry on its head.

And when I met him, he said -- he was kind of saying, Oh, how it would be nice if he could retire, and so on and so forth, and having done three of these things. And then he said, "But it sure would be great to create a fourth."

And I -- it was the combination of having this character who was clearly -- had a kind of genius for inventing the future, and having a person who was about to go do it again and would let me into his life and watch him that attracted me to him.

TUCKER: And what do you mean by "The New New Thing"?

LEWIS: Well, "The New New Thing" is the expression I use for, you know, an idea or a technology that's sort of poised on the brink of popular acceptance, and all it needs is a little shove from somebody to get going. You know, the Internet was that way in 1995 when Clark, you know, created Netscape.

That it's -- it's that thing that all it requires is muscle from the right guy to get going. And the valley, you know, specializes in finding the new new thing, you know, sort of inventing the future. They have an expression in the valley that -- they say that the best way to predict the future is to invent it.

And there are these people out there, extraordinarily, who devote their lives to doing just that.

TUCKER: You say early on in the book that the Internet was a Trojan horse in which technogeeks entered all sorts of markets previously inhospitable to technogeeks. Would you characterize Clark as one of those technogeeks?

LEWIS: Yes, the quintessential one. I mean, he doesn't look like one, exactly. He's sort of big and handsome, and it's surprising when you meet him that he is. But he's a technical man, you know, he's a man with his Ph.D. in computer science who spent the better part -- his early career as a university professor of computer science.

And then kind of discovered business at age, you know, 38. And since then, it's been -- watching his career has been watching this fantastic will wedded to technological aptitude groping its way into more and more sectors of American life.

I mean, this third company he created, Healtheon, it was -- it came from a visit to the doctor's office. He went to the doctor's office and, of course, had to fill in all the forms that we have to fill in when we go to the doctor's office, and decided this was nonsense.

All the bureaucracy in the health care industry could be eliminated with the Internet, that he was going to create this company that would wire everybody together so that when you went into the doctor's office, the doctor would just hit a button to get your medical records, and another button to find out what you were insured for, and another button to send the bill to the insurance company, and you'd never be bothered by any of it.

It would all be much more efficient. He figured that, you know, with this company, he could eliminate $300 or $400 billion in waste and, you know, maybe keep $100 billion for himself.

But in the process, you know, what he did is create a company filled with engineers writing software that was plopped down into the middle of the health care industry.

TUCKER: But give us a bit more of Jim Clark's background. Because I find it really fascinating that, hearing what he did and didn't do before he became so rich and influential, makes that wealth and influence all the more impressive. I mean, you have this example in your book about him taking a multiple-choice test, and he had never even seen one before...

LEWIS: Oh, well, you know, (inaudible), you know, his story teaches you the meaning of poverty, that poverty is not just being poor, it's also not even having the opportunity to discover what you're good at. He grew up poorer than poor in Plainview (ph), Texas. And he was thrown out of the local high school at age 16. His -- how -- the family he grew up in was a mess. His mother was wonderful, but his father would beat her regularly, and he had a drinking problem.

Clark sort of ejected out of Plainview unpromisingly and into the Navy at age 17. And the Navy tried to get him a high -- his high school equivalency. And they put him -- they gave him this multiple-choice test. He'd never seen one before. And he thought as he read the test, he thought that, you know, some -- more than one of the answers was right in each case. And so he circled a whole bunch of answers.

And the Navy thought he was trying to cheat the computer that graded the test. So they didn't even give him his high school equivalency, they shipped him out to sea to perform menial chores on a ship for a year.

When he came back, he ended up in a math class. They gave him another shot. And he scored -- they gave him a test, and he scored the highest in the class on the test. And even he didn't believe it. He didn't think he had any special aptitude. They gave him another test and he scored the highest again. And in six weeks he was teaching the class. And the naval instructor said, Look, we don't -- we haven't seen anybody with your kind of natural talent come through here in a long, long time. You've got to get on with your education.

And in seven years he had not only his high school diploma but his college degree, a master's in physics, and a Ph.D. in computer science.

And he was sort of mistakenly, as a result, channeled into the university. You know, he was a bad university professor for a lot of years, bouncing around, losing jobs. At age 38, he's at Stanford and deeply unhappy, teaching computer science, when he had what he describes as kind of a transforming event in his life. He just -- he was so depressed. He'd run through a couple of marriages and a lot of jobs, and didn't seem to be going anywhere with his life.

He said -- he kind of -- it was one of those California moments. He decided he was just going to reinvent himself. And something actually happened to him. And I don't know -- he can't quite explain it. But all of a sudden, he became kind of a leader in the Stanford department, and he turned this into a business opportunity. He'd been working on a computer chip, which he called the geometry engine, which was going to make three-dimensional graphics possible, and commercially possible.

And with this chip, he created a company called Silicon Graphics, which, of course, is a very prominent company in Silicon Valley now. And his students followed him into the business. And that's where he got his start in business.

TUCKER: And -- but between the invention of Silicon Graphics and Netscape, he had a kind of a stumble in this interactive television idea that he had.

LEWIS: That's a very interesting story, because it shows you the power -- this is where he -- this is the prehistory of the Internet boom. In the early 1990s, Clark decided that what Silicon Graphics really needed to do to preserve its business, because its business was being rapidly eroded by Microsoft, that it needed to get -- it needed to create a telecomputer. He kept talking about the telecomputer.

And the idea was that you were going to interact with your television set, because there'd be a computer chip in it, and you'd do all these different things for your television set, including e-mail and e-commerce -- well, basically, all the things we've come to do on the Internet.

And the people at Silicon Graphics didn't want to bother with this thing. They thought it was a distraction. So Clark, who was chair -- his title was chairman of the company, started talking to journalists. He discovered that journalists would believe anything, they -- and print it.

And so he -- he -- that he created a firestorm of publicity about the telecomputer. And sooner or later he got hooked up, through all this publicity, with Time Warner, who was kind of thinking some of the same thoughts. And sure enough, Time Warner contracted Silicon Graphics to build a telecomputer in Orlando, Florida. They did a -- it would -- they wired 4,000 homes with this thing to test it.

Once this happened, it triggered a wave of capital and human expenditure in the high technology companies on telecomputers. Every big company was building its telecomputer at one point, Microsoft, AT&T, Oracle, I mean, you name it, the big high-tech companies all thought the telecomputer was going to be the next thing.

This is all, in a funny way, sort of Jim Clark's doing. Well, in the middle of building the telecomputer, it became clear that it just wasn't viable, that building -- that the thing -- the box was going to cost $20,000, $25,000, and nobody was going to pay this for a telecomputer.

And Clark had become so disgruntled with his role inside of Silicon Graphics that he sort of sneaked out the place. And he bumped into a young man named Mark Andreesson, who had written the Mosaic program, which became the Netscape browser. And Mark Andreesson had abandoned any idea of making a business of this thing. But when Clark saw it, he realized that all these big dreams he'd had for the telecomputer, that it was -- they could be grafted onto the Internet.

It was a case of chance favoring the prepared mind. And so he created Netscape.

TUCKER: And this is the -- I love the way you have this phrase in the book, you -- the telecomputer, which, you know, was even felt by Bill Gates to be a threat, you describe this transition as "one of the great unintended head fakes in the history of technology."

LEWIS: It set all these people racing off in one direction, and Clark snuck out the door and went off in another direction. And then they all came racing back following him. You know, overnight, Microsoft's thousand -- they had 1,000 employees building interactive television.

That department became the Internet browser department, that it was -- he didn't mean to do it, but he sort of -- he's a -- he's a -- he was a great promoter of ideas. That is his, that is his role now in our world, and he promoted this idea, and it turned out to be wrong, but he managed to sell it to an awful lot of people.

TUCKER: I'm talking to Michael Lewis, the author of "The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story."

Netscape, explain to us what that is, what an Internet browser is. It was launched in 1994. And what did it enable people to do through their computers?

LEWIS: Well, it enabled them to travel around the Internet and visit, you know, Web sites. And it just -- it made -- this was something that people were already doing, it just made it easier to do. And it was a bet -- it was a better means of transportation, think of it that way.

And it was overnight a sensation, you know, that they posted their software up on the Internet and let people download it for free. And it was all over the place almost instantly. So what it -- what it -- what it caused -- I mean, it was the popularization of the Internet, that people got ahold of their browsers, and they started moving around the Internet.

And now it's just assumed that when you buy your computer, you know, it comes with one browser or another, usually Microsoft's browser now. But Netscape was what popularized this technology.

TUCKER: And by no coincidence at all, it also helped make Clark a billionaire.

LEWIS: Well, in the most extraordinary ways too, because this company that he created, only 18 months after he created it, it had no -- you know, no profits, big losses is all it had, and no real clear plan for making profits. And yet they went to the stock market and said, We're going to sell shares in this thing. And the stock market did the most extraordinary thing. It said, Fantastic, we'll buy, and drove the price of the stock up to just, you know, fantastic heights, making Clark, who owned the most shares, a billionaire.

TUCKER: Now, this is what I didn't -- I don't understand, as I read. I was thinking -- because you write, "No longer did you need to show profits. You needed to show rapid growth. Having a past actually counted against a company, for a past was a record, and a record was a sign of a company's limitations."

To me, this seems like antithetical to every business concept. I mean, am I missing something?

LEWIS: It certainly -- no, you're not missing (inaudible). Warren Buffett himself says he doesn't understand what's going on, that old-fashioned investors can't fathom what's happened, because, you know, you know, historically in the markets, the markets assumed that your future profits were some -- were -- bore some close relationship to your past profits. They extrapolated your future from your past.

What the markets were saying all of a sudden in 1995 was that, We think that the future is going to be so different from the present that the past can't matter. So what we will buy is not a track record, we will buy a really persuasive story about your role in the future.

And this is a huge psychological shift in the stock markets, I mean, a really big change. And all the stuff that's going on now with Internet stocks, you know, this is a -- it's a direct result of what Netscape started. It's now become the done thing to invest based on essentially a story or a concept, rather than, you know, hard financial data.

TUCKER: I'm talking to Michael Lewis, the author of "The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story."

Let's take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

TUCKER: My guest is Michael Lewis. His new book is about Silicon Valley multibillionaire Jim Clark, the founder of Netscape.

Isn't there a sense in which this new world of Internet startups and public offerings is a kind -- it's kind of insane. It's one of those kind of self-perpetuating fantasies. It's almost like a pyramid scheme that keeps yielding real money for investors. Does it ever strike you that way? It's like a soap bubble that's being kept from bursting by some miracle?

LEWIS: It does feel a bit that way sometimes. And even, you know, it -- never mind what I think. You know, people like Clark think that it's overdone. And that tells you something, when the people on the inside wonder when it's all going to end.

But having said that, look, something very real is happening. I mean, the society is undergoing great technological change. The Internet is a big, big deal. So something real is coming out of it. The question is, you know, how many of these companies that go public every week are going to survive and actually benefit the investors who put their money into them?

And lord only knows about that. You know, I've come to think of it a bit like one -- the -- one vast social conspiracy to channel capital to places where it might be of use. It's a bit like, I don't know, like the space program. You know how the space program, the government has spent all kinds of money getting a -- getting man into space, and as a result of that expenditure, there were all these wonderful inventions that were actually market worthy came out of them, that throwing all the money at the technology actually produced all sorts of things, fruits.

In a funny way, that's -- that kind of thing is going on now in Silicon Valley. Huge sums of money are being thrown at very smart people with really interesting ideas about how to change the world, and a lot of very positive change will come out of it, in the sense that a lot of, you know, wealth creation will come out of it. Also a lot of turmoil will come out of it.

But I wouldn't like to be in the business of choosing which companies will survive and which won't, because I think it's very hard to say, and a lot of them won't.

TUCKER: Can the business world take more than one Jim Clark? By which I mean, you know, if there were hundreds of Jim Clark-style entrepreneurs trying to operate the way he does, wouldn't they cause, like, a succession of disasters? It seems to me that...

LEWIS: (laughs)

TUCKER: You know?

LEWIS: Well, there actually are hundreds of Jim Clark-style entrepreneurs. I mean, he just happens to be, I think, the most extraordinary case. But he is a type, you know, he's not a one-off, that there are lots of people who are -- who take this approach to the marketplace. They're pathological creators of things, that they start things and the move on.

Silicon Valley happens to have more of these people than any other place in the -- on the planet. But they're -- but these people exist in lot -- you know, lots of Jim Clarks, that he's just -- he was -- he's just the most extraordinary.

TUCKER: And even though the book's done and out there, do you -- are you still following his career? I see that he's launching something called Shutterfly.com?

LEWIS: It's riveting. I watch him -- you know, if you want to know where the world's going, you watch him.

TUCKER: Right.

LEWIS: He's -- yes, I -- you know, the -- Shutterfly is not the new new thing. The new new thing is this company he's creating called My CFO, which has got -- I mean, it's a new kind of financial institution he's created, which -- it's very vague and amorphous, but -- and the best way to describe it is as a union of rich people, I think. But it's managed to get -- you know, the heads of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are trying to buy a piece of it, because they see that, you know, if you gather all the assets up together in one pile, those assets will have a great power.

And that's what he's trying to do. But yes, so yes, I've been -- I've followed rather closely what he's up to.

TUCKER: So My CFO is like a way of kind of managing the wealth of the ultrarich for...

LEWIS: Yes, (inaudible)...

TUCKER: But to what purpose?

LEWIS: He calls them the wealthy masses. That he -- the idea, the way he started it, is by appealing to the rich people's desire to avoid paying taxes. And he -- he's -- so it starts as a kind of tax consultancy business. And it tells you something about what's changed in American life, that partners at big eight accounting firms are racing out the door to join this enterprise and taking their customers with them, because working at the big eight accounting firm, they might make a nice high salary, but they'll never get rich. Whereas working for Jim Clark, they'll get a piece of the company, and they might get rich.

And so his idea is, first you get all the, you know, you get all the accountants that advise the rich into one place. Their clients come with them. And what begins as a tax advisory service can morph into all sorts of things, that if you've got, you know, as customers people who control a few trillion dollars in assets, and you say to them, Look, give us the right to negotiate on your behalf with Wall Street investment banks or commercial banks for various services, that that money could have all kinds of leverage in the marketplace.

And so he's -- it's a -- it's -- as I say, it sound -- if I sound -- if it sounds vague, it's because it is vague. But what's so, to me, so interesting about it is the force behind this thing, that the board of directors reads like a who's who of Silicon Valley, the head of Cisco, John Chambers, is on the board and owns a little piece of the company and is a customer in the company. Jim Barksdale, Tom Jermilac, who's the head of @Home, John Doare (ph), who's sort of the prominent venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.

That you can already see these people who are, you know, some of the richest people in the country, and the sort of trend-setting rich people in the country, creating something new. And I don't think even they are quite sure what it's going to be. But, and other than Clark's sort of original kind of vision that if you gathered all this money into one pile, it sure would be powerful.

TUCKER: Well, thank you very much.

LEWIS: Thank you.

TUCKER: Michael Lewis is the author of "The New New Thing."

I'm Ken Tucker, and this is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Ken Tucker, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Michael Lewis
High: Writer Michael Lewis discusses his new book, "The New New Thing," about Silicon Valley and the man behind the newest billion dollar-making venture.
Spec: Entertainment; Computers; Technology; Business; "The New New Thing"

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Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: "The New New Thing": An Interview With Michael Lewis

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: NOVEMBER 09, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 110902NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: "Where Did I Go Right?": An Interview With Bernie Brillstein
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:30

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Ken Tucker, sitting in for Terry Gross.

My guest, Bernie Brillstein, has been a manager for at least two generations of TV and film stars. His clients have ranged from Norm Crosby to John Belushi to Rob Lowe. He came up for the idea for "Hee-Haw," the country music TV show, and he's produced movies like "Ghost Busters" and "Dangerous Liaisons."

In partnership with Brad Gray (ph), Brillstein pioneered an intensive style of management that made him part agent, part friend, part baby sitter. Brillstein writes about many of his clients in his new book, "Where Did I Go Right? You're No One in Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead."

Brillstein got his start in show biz in the mail room of the William Morris Agency, and his uncle, Jack Pearl (ph), was a comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies. I asked him about the early days.

BERNIE BRILLSTEIN, "WHERE DID I GO RIGHT?": First of all, our house was filled a lot of times with show business personalities. And even though I was a little kid, I sort of got the idea that they were important. And secondly, he used to take me to all the wonderful clubs on the East Side of New York, the Stork Club, Toots Shorr's (ph), the Harwin (ph). And there I'd see the people who actually ran New York and probably the world.

I'd see Joe DiMaggio, I'd see Jackie Gleason, I'd see the ex-mayor of New York, Jimmy Walker, I'd see everyone. And I decided then someday I'd really like to be part of that.

TUCKER: So you're, like, at Toots Shorr's getting Shirley Temples with Frank Sinatra or something?

BRILLSTEIN: Not exactly, but I did have -- (inaudible) did set a lunch with Joe DiMaggio once. I remember that.

TUCKER: Really? What was that like?

BRILLSTEIN: Boring. I mean, he wasn't a man known to speak a lot, and I'm sure he was doing it as a favor to my Uncle Jack and Aunt Winnie. But all I did was stare at him. And he wore a beautiful blue suit and a solid blue tie and a light blue shirt. And he looked like Joe DiMaggio.

And I got an autograph, which I'm sure I sold.

TUCKER: Right. (laughs)

BRILLSTEIN: Or did something silly to. And -- but it was great to remember those. I did see Jackie Gleason and Frank Sinatra drinking at the bar with Toots Shorr a lot of times.

TUCKER: What was the Club Samoa?

BRILLSTEIN: Aha! That's my father's life, that's the West Side of New York. That was on 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue. It was known as The Street in those days. It was all the jazz joints, where Billie Holiday and Dizzie Gillespie and -- oh, God, Miles -- everyone played. And there were about 15 clubs on The Street, all owned by or controlled by guys in the Mob.

And in the middle of all this was this Club Samoa, which was basically a place where men went to meet women. And Madison Square Garden was on 50th -- between 50th and 51st and Eighth Avenue. And my friend Norman Cardigano (ph) and I would go to the ball games at the Garden, and then my father would have a club sandwich and a Coke waiting for both of us. I looked around, and I knew what was happening, but I made believe I didn't.

And it was -- they used to call them bust-out joints. If I guy would come in, he'd sit with a girl, and they'd go up on stage and do sort of a strip, and another girl would come over and sit with him.

So it was interesting combination of two lives.

TUCKER: And what did your father do?

BRILLSTEIN: He was in the millinery business. He made hats. And he was also president of the synagogue.

TUCKER: Now, you say that watching Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis at the Copacabana really hooked you on show business. What was it about their act that made it seem so exciting?

BRILLSTEIN: Well, if I could set the time a little bit, I was -- when it -- I really started out where I could go to places myself. I had gone to see Lenny Bruce and Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall, and that really excited me. It was new and different. And I was amazed how great it was.

Then my mother took me to the Capitol Theater. The movie was "Dorian Gray." And I think second billed, the band with Xavier Cugat, and underneath were Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, who I never heard of.

And I had never seen something that made me laugh as much. Jerry Lewis actually jumped off the stage, came running through the crowd, and they sang, they danced. And there was something about them that just got to me. A year or two later they were at the Copacabana, which was the best night club in New York, not the classiest, but the best, where careers were made.

And I saw them 21 days in a row, and they went on to become Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Now, I know it's fashionable today for people to make fun of Jerry Lewis. Jerry Lewis then and now is a great comedian, a great showman, and he taught me a lot about the business. And seeing him perform with Dean, Jerry was six-two, Dean was six-three and handsome. They sang together, they danced together and did an amazing act.

TUCKER: Did you yourself ever want to be a performer?

BRILLSTEIN: I didn't have the guts. I certainly -- look, I mean, talking to you scares the hell out of me. I mean, I'm always so used to being behind the scenes, and for doing this for the people I represent, that this is a whole new experience for me.

TUCKER: So how did you decide that you wanted to be behind the scenes? How did you -- what was your concept of being a manager? How did that come about?

BRILLSTEIN: Oh, I had none. When I started out at William Morris, I just wanted to get into show business. I stayed there eight years, and found out everything I didn't want to do.

TUCKER: What didn't you want to do?

BRILLSTEIN: Well, I didn't want to represent the company and not the artist. Everything -- well, this is heresy, but it's the truth. Everything William Morris does, or a lot of it, is for William Morris. Believe it or not, clients usually came in second. And I saw what was done and by whom, because when I left William Morris in 1963, it was being run by accountants and lawyers, which was never my favorite thing to run anything, especially a show business company.

So I left to become a manager. The fellow who managed Jack Paar just left MCA and was opening his own management company, and he offered me a very good deal to go over there, and I did. And I didn't have any concept, except to make a living. And my first client that I signed -- Jim Henson came over from William Morris about two months after I went there. That's Jim Henson of the Muppets. And this was before Jim became Jim Henson.

But I believed in him. And the first client I signed, who's been my client now for 35 years, was Norm Crosby, a malaprop comedian, who's still my client. And I liked helping the people run their creative lives. It was us against the world, us against the agents, us against the networks, us against the movie studios. And it was like being married.

TUCKER: You mention agents, and I think a lot of people confuse agents and managers. I mean, in your book you say, you know, What's the difference between an agent and a manager? And you say, Five percent. But really...

BRILLSTEIN: That's one of my silly offhanded remarks.

TUCKER: But -- yes, but...

BRILLSTEIN: (laughs)

TUCKER: ... but it has a basis in truth.

BRILLSTEIN: It does.

TUCKER: And I just think it would be interesting for you to explain to people who don't really know the difference between an agent and a manager.

BRILLSTEIN: OK, an agent is licensed by the state as an employment agency. They -- you sign a contract with them. They have exclusive rights to sell you and get employment for you. A manager -- certainly in my case, I've never had a contract -- but we can do everything but get employment for clients. We take care of them with the agents, we take care of them with the lawyers, we're the middlemen with the networks, the studios, the night club owners, the Broadway producers.

We're the guy who makes it work between the star and the buyer. That's our real job. The manager is there all week long, the agent shows up the night of the show.

TUCKER: My guest is show business manager Bernie Brillstein, author of the new memoir "Where Did I Go Right?" We'll talk more after a short break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

TUCKER: My guest is Bernie Brillstein. His new book is about his life as a show business manager.

You were in, I think, your mid-40s when you helped launch "The Muppet Show" and helped sell NBC on the idea of "Saturday Night Live." I wondered if you felt like a middle-aged guy handling a younger generation that you didn't necessarily identify with.

BRILLSTEIN: Well, let me give you a tiny bit of background on that. My dad always told me, from 20 to 40, you lay the groundwork for your career. From 40 to 60, you collect. And after 60 you can screw it up any way you'd like.

So here I was, successful but not really successful. I certainly made more money than most people know what to do with. I was respected. But I hadn't become that thing. Does that make any sense? I hadn't become...

TUCKER: A presence that people knew?

BRILLSTEIN: A presence that people both paid attention to, feared, and respected, I don't know in which order, but any of the above. Jim Henson had been with me since 1960. He went on "Sesame Street" in 1967 or '9, I think '9, 1969.

I had tried to sell "The Muppet Show" for six years and couldn't because the geniuses in the research at the network said puppets wouldn't work at night. Finally the path led me to Lou Grade (ph) in England, who believed the Muppets were great because they had done "The Julie Andrews Show," hour variety show, when there was variety. And he gave me an order for 24 shows and put it on the CBS owned and operated stations. And that became an overnight hit.

"Saturday Night Live," which came before the Muppets by six months, was all the doing of Lorne Michaels, who was a Canadian writer who I had signed when he was writing "Laugh-In" and stayed with. And he had this idea. Bernie, I'd love to do a television show for people who were brought up on television.

I thought that was a great idea. I didn't know how aware, hip, and ahead of the curve Lorne was.

Now, to get back to your question, which you asked about 30 minutes ago, I guess...

(LAUGHTER)

BRILLSTEIN: ... I never felt older than them, because they treated me with such respect. Belushi treated me fantastically, Aykroyd treated me fantastic. They didn't know about agents and managers. That's how unsophisticated the business was at that time. And that was only 24 hours ago.

They knew I represented Lorne. They knew Lorne was smart. Therefore they knew that I was smart. So they treated me fantastically. And every once in a while I came up with something intelligent for them to do. And they -- we really all loved one another. It was us in the trenches against the suits at NBC.

TUCKER: Well, you're very blunt in the book about John Belushi's use of drugs. What was it like to have to manage someone who seemed pretty determined to mess up his life?

BRILLSTEIN: I don't know if you've ever been involved with anyone who did drugs. I hope not. I have, both personally and in business. The laws of this country do not allow you to commit anyone for help. They have to commit themselves. So although you know it, you never think it's as bad as you find out later it was. And in 1975 to '82, when John died, he always said to me, "I have the heart of a high school senior. And you take care of me from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. After that, my life is my own."

So he was an adult. I couldn't commit him. Did I ever think he used the drugs they said he used at the end? No, I don't. I still don't believe it, because John was petrified of needles. But he certainly was excessive. He was excessive in his comedy, he was excessive in his eating. Obviously he was excessive in his drug use. But did I think he was going to kill himself? No. No.

TUCKER: But he would come to you and ask you for money for drugs?

BRILLSTEIN: No, no, no, no. He asked me the last day. He never asked me. Look, people offered me drugs in front of him, and he would smack their hands and say, "Don't you dare insult Bernie." So John never did drugs in front of me and never admitted that he did drugs in front of me.

We would talk about him doing drugs, but he never once said to me, I'm going to go out and do some cocaine. It just wasn't the relationship. It was like a father and son.

So I owed him a birthday present. His birthday was January 29, I believe, or 30. I mean, right around there. And this was a few days -- it was March. And he said, "You still owe me a birthday present."

So I said, "OK." He said, "I found Les Paul's guitar at the Guitar Center, and the guy won't take anything but cash, and he wants $1,800."

Now, he -- the answer is yes, I gave him the money. Did I believe it was for the guitar? You bet I did. He was an actor. I didn't know I was giving him $1,800 to buy drugs. I mean, I really didn't.

Now, was I found guilty by myself? You bet I was. And actually I left town for about six months, because I had to get away from it. I went to Connecticut.

TUCKER: I mean, do you...

BRILLSTEIN: It was -- it's very sad to lose a friend who is 33 from drugs. And it happened again with Chris Farley.

TUCKER: There's a very dramatic scene in the book where you describe actually that you were the person who had to take Belushi's body back East, I guess it was, after he died.

BRILLSTEIN: To Martha's Vineyard.

TUCKER: Yes, was -- you were the only person who would go on the plane with his...

BRILLSTEIN: No, I was the only person in California who actually was responsible to bring him to Martha's Vineyard, where he wanted to get buried. And I don't think there was a crowd waiting to fly in the West Wind, which is a very small plane, with a body bag. It wasn't very pleasant for seven and a half, eight hours.

TUCKER: You...

BRILLSTEIN: And you have to realize, I flew him in on Sunday, and it was only two days after this shock had hit me. So sitting there with the body bag and with my memories and with my anger, with my really -- despair, it wasn't a very nice trip.

TUCKER: We're talking to Bernie Brillstein, the author of "Where Did I Go Right? You're No One in Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead."

Now, in the midst of all this, you're dealing with some of the most cutting-edge performers at the time. It seems pretty odd to me when I read the book that a New York-L.A. guy like you should come up with the idea of "Hee-Haw."

BRILLSTEIN: Well, you have to go back for that.

TUCKER: Yes?

BRILLSTEIN: I hadn't been able to sell the Muppets for a long time, and it really frustrated me. So I went home one night, and I awakened at 3:00, where I do my best thinking, really, and I had the idea, OK, I'll give them what they want. The top 10 at the time was "Green Acres," "Beverly Hillbillies," and "Laugh-In." And I broke them down, and I said, How about a country "Laugh-In"? And I sold it the next day with (inaudible) to Perry Lafferty (ph) and Mike Dann of CBS.

And George Florida (ph), who created "Laugh-In," still kids me that he deserves a royalty for that and "The Muppet Show."

TUCKER: One of the things I like about the book is when you said -- you said, "I want careers, not quick hits." And that makes sense as a manager, because you want a client with a long, profitable life. But, you know, how do you prevent a client from doing something that you think might bring him or her some short-term gain but do some long-term damage to his career?

BRILLSTEIN: OK, someone offers you $75,000 a week, your client, to do a situation comedy that's not written by the best situation comedy writers. It's certainly not written by David Kelley. That you know is just a fill-in for the network, it's cannon fodder.

Sometimes the client would like to take 13 times 50, which is $650,000, and be able to put that money in the bank. My theory has always been, If they're willing to give you a deal now when you're a virgin -- in other words, you haven't been in a series -- why not wait for a good one? If you're going to take the giant step, how about trying to make it work and trying to know the time period and trying to know whose auspices it's under, rather than just taking the money?

It's a constant battle between career and money. Now, if I was an actor and someone came up and offered me $20 billion to do a bad movie, I'm really being honest with you, I'd have a tough time turning it down. But...

TUCKER: So is it your job to help him say no?

BRILLSTEIN: That's correct. Or help him say yes when it's only $250,000 and he's getting $3 million a picture, which Gerry Harrington (ph) in my office did for Nick Cage with "Somewhere in Las Vegas." I mean, Nick had made three movies in a row, comedies, two of which were good and one which wasn't. So the price he had on movies was about that time, oh, $2 or $3 million, I don't know, very high.

And we thought it was time that Nick -- and I think Nick thought -- that we reminded everyone what a great actor he was.

So it's a very difficult choice, because you never know if you're right. I swear, you never know.

TUCKER: My guest is show business manager Bernie Brillstein, author of the new memoir "Where Did I Go Right?" We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

TUCKER: My guest is Bernie Brillstein, co-founder of the Brillstein-Gray Production Company. His new book is about his life as a show business manager.

How did you meet your partner, Brad Gray?

BRILLSTEIN: Oh, it's a great story.

TUCKER: And form that company?

BRILLSTEIN: It's really a great show business -- I've had the company since 1969. And, you know, through all the success and failure we had, I always said to the people working for me, with the reputation we have and with the clients we have, why don't you go out and get some more clients, and we'll make this thing bigger? Because I was busy with Jim Henson and Lorne and Belushi and Aykroyd and Paget (ph) and Tarsus (ph), who wrote "Buffalo Bill," and Norm Crosby.

And everyone just stared at me, because things were going well. And at the time, I think we had -- only had five people in the office.

And then in 1985 or '4 or '6 -- I think it was 18 -- 1984, probably -- I went to cover a show that Telepictures was doing in San Francisco. And the -- it was a club date, a one-nighter. And the comedian was Garry Shandling. Now, I knew he had his manager there, Brad Gray, who I had never met. And being brought up in a polite home in Manhattan, I thought it was rude of me not to go backstage and say, Thank you, it was a terrific show, although in all honesty, I didn't think Shandling was that funny.

So I went backstage, and there was Brad. And we started talking. And he said, "I'd love to come up and see you someday." I said, "Why don't you come over and play tennis someday?" He started playing tennis with me. Then I went to Hawaii, and as someone in my office, Mark Gurevich (ph), tells the story, Brad knew I was going to Hawaii and was at the same hotel. Or as Brad says it, it was pure accident.

Now, you figure it out. So I would bet on the latter a little bit, probably, because Brad is really smart.

TUCKER: Given all the experiences you had, why did you trust Brad Gray to be...

BRILLSTEIN: I'll tell you. We talked and talked and talked, and then one day I got a phone call from Brad, hyperventilating, says, "I have to see you tomorrow morning." At the time, I ate every breakfast in the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I said, "Meet me there are 8:00." I said to my wife at the time -- (inaudible) -- this is my fourth wife and the only one we really talk about -- "This is going to cost me $25,000. I have a kid in trouble." Because Brad was only 24 -- 25 at the time.

So I go to breakfast, and he's, like, hyperventilating, he spits it out, and he says, "With your knowledge of production and with your knowledge of the business and people, I can bring you all the young talent in the world if you'll teach me production."

Therefore he gave back to me my own words. And I said, "OK, let me think about it." But, you know, I never wanted to spend the money, to tell you the truth, to expand. I was very happy with this Mom and Pop business.

But I thought about it, and I liked Brad a lot. Then I said, Let's do it. And five years later, I made him my partner, and six years later or five years after that, he bought me out. It's a great story. And I still work there for him.

TUCKER: Now, you've sold the company to Brad Gray...

BRILLSTEIN: That's it.

TUCKER: ... fairly recently. And you say in the book, "I was old. He had become the driving force in the company, and my ego couldn't take it." Now, that seems to me to be very honest. How hard was that? It must have been difficult for you.

BRILLSTEIN: It's terribly difficult. You know, I think the title of the chapter is, "It's Not Good Enough to Be King Any More." When I'm used to getting all those phone calls saying, Yes, No, Yes, No, and that was the final word. All of a sudden, about 40 percent of those phone calls don't go to you any more. And people are very nice and polite about it. No one was rude.

But, you know, I've been around a long time. I know when I'm not that powerful any more. I'm more powerful now because I'm back to my basic business, which is taking care of talent.

You know, I'm having the best time with Rob Lowe, I mean, on "West Wing." He's great. It's a great show. John Laroquette, Marty Short's television show, Wayne Brady. I mean, I could go on and on. Sounds like an audition. But I'm back to basics. I'm handling -- you don't know a young comedian by the name of Brandon Bowlin.

TUCKER: No.

BRILLSTEIN: He will be a big star next year.

TUCKER: OK, Brandon Bowlin.

BRILLSTEIN: He's terrific. Yes, that's how I -- B-O-W-L-I-N. Because that's how I started, developing all this talent. And Brad now has taken our company into the millennium. He is going to be an amazing force in the business. I'm still there, I'm in the office next to his, I'm along for the ride. And I'm holding my own with everyone. I'm also, like, the consultant for the -- you know, to all the young people in the company.

I still know some tricks. You know, it's pretty nice.

TUCKER: Well, thank you very much, Bernie Brillstein. It's really been nice talking to you.

BRILLSTEIN: You've been great. Thank you very much.

TUCKER: Bernie Brillstein is the author of "Where Did I Go Right? You're No One in Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead."

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our engineer is Bob Purdick. Dorothy Farabee (ph) is our administrative assistant. Our researcher is Helen Wang (ph). Roberta Shorrock directs the show.

For Terry Gross, I'm Ken Tucker.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Ken Tucker, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Bernie Brillstein
High: Manager to TV and film stars Bernie Brillstein developed a very hands-on style of management, and has written a new memoir about his work, "Where Did I Go Right?: You're No One in Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead."
Spec: Entertainment; Business; Radio And Television; Movie Industry

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Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: "Where Did I Go Right?": An Interview With Bernie Brillstein
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